Sooooo...this article from Paradox is interesting...?

[Ducky251]

Redirect Notice

So...erm...I’m not sure what people think.

Yes, people going directly for developers is not on, but on the other hand maybe if they stuck with projects and didn’t ‘have form’ when it came to releases, releases that tie in to their business model which is not wildly popular with gamers, then this wouldn’t occur...

Thoughts?
(Without anything toxic please! Leave that to poison type Pokémon! )

 

[nemuri_no_kogoro]

My thoughts? Shameless PR tactic that's taking a minority of a minority of posts as a way to deflect criticism and garner sympathy.

Not that I condone those toxic or threatening remarks. Those people should be banned and ignored, but this is clear an attempt to frame the low steam review score and Imperator backlash into something that paints Paradox as a victim.

 

[MohawkWolfo98]

Redirect Notice

So...erm...I’m not sure what people think.

Yes, people going directly for developers is not on, but on the other hand maybe if they stuck with projects and didn’t ‘have form’ when it came to releases, releases that tie in to their business model which is not wildly popular with gamers, then this wouldn’t occur...

Thoughts?
(Without anything toxic please! Leave that to poison type Pokémon! )

Toxicity is bad. Death threats are out of order. I have always written posts condemning such nonsense because it takes the topic away from what we all want, which is to make the game better.

However, that is not an excuse for the poor quality releases they have been doing. The disaster of Emperor, then Leviathian flopping completely stinks of incompetence. After promising to do better, Paradox has shown they don’t care nowadays about quality. Johan and developers are smart people who have coded and designed games; they must have known there had to be issues, yet the release was still set anyway. The overwhelming negativity towards the pack was well deserved.

Paradox then proceeded to pretty much kill Imperator, a game that just was about to turn good and needed abit more love to nurture. I bought the Alexander’s DLC not because I wanted, but because for the first time I wanted to support them, and because I thought that with Pradox’s reputation of updating games, I thought they would continue development. Instead it was abandoned long before that. This was a fingers up to fans and a huge betrayal of what the company should have been about. Insert a bunch of swear words here.

TLDR: Toxcity is bad, but can criticism about the recent direction Paradox has undertaken is totally legit and is being ignored by Paradox themselves. Which is frankly sad.

 

[Ingor]

Toxicity is bad. Death threats are out of order. I have always written posts condemning such nonsense because it takes the topic away from what we all want, which is to make the game better.

However, that is not an excuse for the poor quality releases they have been doing. The disaster of Emperor, then Leviathian flopping completely stinks of incompetence. After promising to do better, Paradox has shown they don’t care nowadays about quality. Johan and developers are smart people who have coded and designed games; they must have known there had to be issues, yet the release was still set anyway. The overwhelming negativity towards the pack was well deserved.

Paradox then proceeded to pretty much kill Imperator, a game that just was about to turn good and needed abit more love to nurture. I bought the Alexander’s DLC not because I wanted, but because for the first time I wanted to support them, and because I thought that with Pradox’s reputation of updating games, I thought they would continue development. Instead it was abandoned long before that. This was a fingers up to fans and a huge betrayal of what the company should have been about. Insert a bunch of swear words here.

TLDR: Toxcity is bad, but can criticism about the recent direction Paradox has undertaken is totally legit and is being ignored by Paradox themselves. Which is frankly sad.

You can add the very poor Nemesis DLC on Stellaris to the list of recent poor quality release.

 

[Ducky251]

As I said, if this was a ‘one off’, as in there wasn’t a litany of reasons for fans/customers to complain as of late, I would sympathise more.

But...this has happened. With most releases/DLCs/patches for quite a while.

There is no shame in saying ‘we aren’t quite ready so we’ll push release back two weeks’, after 2020 I think people would quite understand!

I think people may lose sympathy from the comments...also that they deleted their own apology and started deleting threads makes them look petty and insecure.

The fact that Paradox is making major news outlets due to ‘worst steam launch on record’ is enough to make this meme apt:

Paradox’s PR Department^^

 

[Snow Crystal]

My thoughts? Shameless PR tactic that's taking a minority of a minority of posts as a way to deflect criticism and garner sympathy.

You are conflating two issues that have nothing to do with one another. That has nothing to do with "PR" or to "garner sympathy", it is a Content Designer (and trust me, we are as far away from marketing as you get) being honest with people.

 

[MohawkWolfo98]

You are conflating two issues that have nothing to do with one another. That has nothing to do with "PR" or to "garner sympathy", it is a Content Designer (and trust me, we are as far away from marketing as you get) being honest with people.

I don’t think it’s a PR tactic, and honestly I’m glad that Paradox is showing to gamers “look, this is the type of crap u gamers give us. Stop this”. This sort of thing needs to be pointed out: any toxic behaviours against is frankly unacceptable. It’s a game for goodness sake.

At the same time though, I suspect a lot of the fans like myself are deeply concerned with how paradox is going, first with EU4 and the disasters, then the switching off of Imeprator when Paradox’s entire ethos was to give such GSG a chance to grow.... it feels like a direct betrayal of us fans and the fact there is no such apologies from anyone is concerning. As someone who paid for the DLC to show direct support to u and Arheo, I feel betrayed tbh.

Hope u do know Snow that none is this is directed at u, none of this is ur fault and I still think that you and the Imperator dev team frankly were the best of the entire bunch at Paradox. Wish u all the best in Stellaris and I know u will be great. Please put a Senate for Democracies/Oligarchs in Stellaris please it’s the last thing I want from the game

 

[Bastian420]

Some people are just too rude on the internet, saying all kind of wild things they would never say to someone in person.

 

[Nostalgium]

Having strafed by some of the other subforums lately, yeah, I can see it. Even here, you get some pretty scathing stuff directly aimed at Johan. And sure, I get the frustration. I'm in no way a "Paradox Apologist" or rabid fanboy (even though I've called out a fair few on what I consider entitlement rather than legitimate criticism of the game), and their current portfolio is definitely in a bit of a shall we say "state". But; it's one thing to rip into the game or business decisions made by corporate, but a lot of the 'criticism' is just angry venting directed explicitly at the devs, using namecalling and even clamouring for specific devs to "never touch game development again". I can absolutely understand that the devs, who don't actually HAVE to communicate with us on the forums at all, get worn out by this and step down their interactivity.

It's extremely unfortunate, since the back-and-forth, direct and candid communcation with devs is something I've always enjoyed with Paradox, but it's pretty unique to them. It's something I'd even call a bit precious. But seeing the vitriol directed at devs increase over the years, largely in relation to Paradox' growth as a company, I can kinda start seeing why it is unique. Large player bases means more bad apples, even if the percentage remains the same. If you have 70 active forum users, and one makes a scathing comment a few times a week, that's manageable. If you have 700, and 10 start doing the same, you can run a situation where you have more than one post directly criticizing you or your work - or your colleagues and their work - every day, all seven days of the week.

I worked in retail for a long time, and the amount of frankly absurd abuse you had to take for stuff that wasn't remotely your fault, to your face, every day, got really taxing. And if I could've chosen NOT to take that abuse simply by not engaging, I would have. So I get it.

 

[MagisterMundi]

My thoughts? Shameless PR tactic that's taking a minority of a minority of posts as a way to deflect criticism and garner sympathy.

Not that I condone those toxic or threatening remarks. Those people should be banned and ignored, but this is clear an attempt to frame the low steam review score and Imperator backlash into something that paints Paradox as a victim.

To be fair, though, the comments they were referring to happened before Leviathan, even if they brought it up again today. It definitely is a trend, moreso in some of their games than others (Imperator has been more or less civil, but HoI4 and to a lesser extent EU4 are different stories).

That said, I don't think they face any more or less vitriol than any other publisher/developer with public forums. Maybe even a bit less, since there's still a fair bit of good will from the "old guard" (like myself) who have played their games more or less since the start. I think they might take it more personally because they're used to having constructive back-and-forth dialogue with their community, and that's just not as much of a thing anymore, both because the internet itself seems to be getting more toxic and because they've drifted away from a lot of the principles that generated that good will in the first place.

So... yeah. It's definitely a problem, though partially one of their own making, I think. I also think they just need to take a zero tolerance approach and bring down the hammer on people doing this. Other developers I follow are much more proactive in editing posts to remove bashing and just plain banning people than Paradox is, and I think they have the right idea. Also, ideally they need to grow a thicker skin, because unfortunately I don't see this getting any easier for them (or anyone else doing business on the internet) going forward.

 

[Nostalgium]

That said, I don't think they face any more or less vitriol than any other publisher/developer with public forums. [...] I think they might take it more personally because they're used to having constructive back-and-forth dialogue with their community...

Singling out this because it's the part I "take issue" with, but I think the key difference is that other public forums generally don't have the direct participation of devs. I'm not a big forum guy (despite my activity here) but I can honestly not remember any other non-indie forums where the devs - not PR people or game directors, the actual devs - respond to threads, player questions, etc. If I'm wrong and this is common practice, I'll bow out. Agree with the gist of the rest of the post, though.

EDIT: Especially the more liberal use of the banhammer.

 

[Spartanlemur]

In all fairness, I haven't actually seen any toxicity myself (I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but I haven't seen it).

Though I do think that the negativity towards Leviathan became something of a meme. It's not the worst game available on Steam and while the features suck, the content is quite good. I wouldn't recommend buying it at that price, and I think it was a bad expansion, but it wasn't terrible.

The negativity about the Imperator decision is actually in praise of the current dev team, who are doing a fantastic job and are being shut down in their hour of glory, which is sad. I want to see Arheo back in charge of Imperator again - it's very important that games have the right game director, and he is the right one for Imperator.

But in general, when you have a very passionate fanbase, you're going to get emotional responses to decisions. That's not excusing the more extreme cases of anger, but it explains them.

 

[MagisterMundi]

Singling out this because it's the part I "take issue" with, but I think the key difference is that other public forums generally don't have the direct participation of devs. I'm not a big forum guy (despite my activity here) but I can honestly not remember any other non-indie forums where the devs - not PR people or game directors, the actual devs - respond to threads, player questions, etc. If I'm wrong and this is common practice, I'll bow out. Agree with the gist of the rest of the post, though.

EDIT: Especially the more liberal use of the banhammer.

It varies. I've seen some public forums were the devs do participate (though rarely to the level Paradox historically has - that's pretty unique), and do so in part because they know that people just spewing toxicity will get the boot before they can poison the well all that much. The Elder Scrolls Online forum comes to mind - it's fairly regular for combat designers and the like to explain their thinking and debate those points with players arguing in good faith, and also, that forum has very low tolerance for bashing and posts containing nothing but toxicity. In fact, the moderators there regularly edit people's posts and remove any bashing while leaving the rest intact. Not to say that community isn't without its fair share of issues, but that's one solidly good thing they do, I think.

In other cases, though, you're right - that zero tolerance policy also comes with minimal dev-to-player interaction, though I'm not sure there's necessarily a connection there. Liberal use of the banhammer, provided it's aligned with clearly established rules of conduct, does not necessarily mean a stifling of that kind of back-and-forth. Heated debate or disagreement is very different from an endless parade of ad hominem attacks.

 

[-SP0-]

You are conflating two issues that have nothing to do with one another. That has nothing to do with "PR" or to "garner sympathy", it is a Content Designer (and trust me, we are as far away from marketing as you get) being honest with people.

99% of posts are valid criticisms so please don't act like victims now. Did a single one of those say a bad thing about Arheo or you? Hell no, we appreciate your work in revitalizing IR:Rome, we recognize your value as devs. However, this decision seems to have been taken from the money hungry overlords you have at PDX, money hunger that doesnt let them see the future of an already on track to be successful game like Imperator, therefore, the angry steam reviews and sarcastic posts.

[Now this is in relation to the EU4 drama]
EU4 backlash, which is a way bigger worry for you, is what turned to be somewhat toxic. But can you honestly blame the playerbase? You rush DLCs and use 0 beta testers, then act surprised when what you release is a hot pile of messy bugs and unbalanced mechanics. Happened before, happened with Emperor, happened with the free update before Leviathan and finally happened again with Leviathan. Learn from your mistakes and people won't rise up in arms, beta test everything and listen to the feedback.

Idk, maybe EU4 doesnt need more updates. The game is old already. Maybe new games like Imperator deserve more attention.

 

[imperial.]

I don’t think it’s a PR tactic, and honestly I’m glad that Paradox is showing to gamers “look, this is the type of crap u gamers give us. Stop this”.

Whilst I did not read the article, i do not think that is at all what Paradox is saying. Correlation in abuse with a generalized term such as the plural Gamers is a dangerous one and produces a opposite intended effect. The correct term is Abusers are to blame for abuse, there are Vegetarians who abuse people too, shall we now show those pesky vegetarians? The fact that they may enjoy playing video games or are vegetarians is irrelevant to the point that abusers will abuse and abuse must stop.

I would also like to interject in my statement, as I now noticed out of all the time in the world this topic could of been bannered about, it was inconveniently placed with the news of underachieving Imperator Rome being side lined for other projects, interestingly this may indeed cause issues if it is genuine or to "garner sympathy'' as the actions are mixed and words don't mean much in the modern world.

 

[Mr. Wiggles]

You can add the very poor Nemesis DLC on Stellaris to the list of recent poor quality release.

The diplomacy dlc for stellaris for being a 20€ dlc was poor in content quantity and quality, too...

Man the guns for HOI4 was highly controversial, and I do not know how many people cared for the Bosphorus expansion...

CK3 in its current state has WAY less content and depth than imperator 2.0.
A shame they decided to kill IR now that things were getting interesting, and I was thinking about buying its dlcs...
I am sorry but this is not fair to people who preordered the game or bought it on day 1.

 

[Knotz]

The toxicity, however you want to define it, of a vocal minority of forum goers was one of the primary reasons Bioware cited for shutting down its official forums.

I think the term 'toxicity' if too inchoate to be meaningful. Death threats and the like are obviously fucked but just the relentless exposure to criticism probably wears on people trying to do their jobs well. I've seen this phenomenon happen over and over and over again where you get one dev that seemingly loves to engage on public facing forums but over times goes quiet, not because the majority of people are being malicious or brutal, in fact overwhelmingly they receive community support, but the act of engaging knowing there is ALWAYS going to be a hostile outlier (or outliers) burns them out. It would be inaccurate, even by this forum's wooby definition of toxicity, to classify legitimate, but never-ending criticism as toxicity but I really do believe that is what drives devs away at the end of the day.

However, its unfair and unreasonable to ask consumers to foster a positive environment for the producers of the content if those consumers feel the product is subpar. I feel the best solution is a personal one, consumers shouldn't allow (or be allowed) to express responses disproportionate to what you would for a subpar product in any other field (ie you don't send mouth frothing death threats to, I dunno, Samsung because your fridge broke). If developers feel like they can't or don't want to deal with the overall community because of that objectively minute but also utterly relentless part of it that seemingly only stays on forums to vent their spleens then that's entirely fine.

 

[IsaacCAT]

but the act of engaging knowing there is ALWAYS going to be a hostile outlier (or outliers) burns them out.

Totally agree with you here.

We need forum curators for that. Devs will only read the posts that are written in good and civil manners curated from the Forum by others. Then they will respon directly if they wish so but not read the answers that will again be curated.

A company like PDX that is growing needs to set up this type of tools to keep the feedback going without burning devs. (Curators will not be affected by this bashing as they are not responsible of the game development).

criticism <> bashing

 

[Negru Voda]

I joined the forums back when EU3 released.

The atmosphere has gotten progressively more toxic imo.

I don’t think the DLC business model and quality are really to blame here, cause you can have criticism with toxicity.

 

[Snow Crystal]

99% of posts are valid criticisms so please don't act like victims now. Did a single one of those say a bad thing about Arheo or you? Hell no, we appreciate your work in revitalizing IR:Rome, we recognize your value as devs.

No, but I don't believe we have called the Imperator forum toxic either? The points brought up by the HoI devs are not reflective of how the forums are for all the other games. I'd say the communities around the different games are quite different to one another.